The statements in this section merely provide background information related to the present disclosure and may not constitute prior art.
Bone marrow aspiration is a procedure used to obtain the blood-forming portion (marrow) of the inner core of bone for examination in a laboratory or for transplantation. The procedure often includes inserting a needle into a bone that contains marrow and withdrawing the marrow. When harvesting large amounts of bone marrow, such as about 55 ml, no more than 2-3 ml of bone marrow is generally taken at one time. Between each successive 2-3 ml draw, the needle is generally advanced into the marrow cavity further and rotated by 90°. The reason for this is that if too much bone marrow is drawn from one area, the sample can be diluted with peripheral blood. In a typical surgical environment, manually advancing and rotating the needle by 90° can be a cumbersome and time consuming process. Thus, there is a need for improved devices and methods for aspirating bone marrow from bone, as well as aspirating biological components generally.